Newsletter February 29, 2008

• Since November last year, when Cily sent you a short News Letter, you have not had any written communication from us. But since then there have been a few meetings. Especially the New Years Party at the American Legion location has been a great success. At least that is what the Board experienced. Thanks to our Vice-Chairman Eric Gossiaux who organized the location for us. The food and drinks for the party were paid by the club this time and we had a good time with music, dancing and discussions.

• But life goes on and already 17 % of this leap year went by. When you grow older time seems to fly faster and before we know Spring is here again. Although the last couple of weeks it has been chilly and windy, in a few months time we may wish we had some of that cooler weather back.

• We welcome a new member of the club: Frank Wilders who lives in Kenner. Those who attended the New Year’s Party have met him and talked to him already. We hope to see him often. Some other names of people has been mentioned to us who are interested in the Holland Club and we sent them information, referred them to the web site and enclosed a registration form. It is amazing to hear that there are still so many Dutch persons in the City who have not heard of the Holland Club.

• Events.

Hopefully, the members who have a connection to the Internet, are looking from time to time at the web site of our Holland Club www.hollandclubno.org where you can find the information about scheduled events and coffee meetings. Now and then there are changes you should be aware off. Joke Mondada informed us that the Butterfly Exhibit we planned to see on Sunday April 20 is not available. Instead we are now combining the scheduled coffee meeting of April 19 with another event on April 20. This will become our New Orleans Street Car outing which will include a Coffee meeting (most likely at ) on the corner of St. Charles Ave. and South Carrolton. Map to La Madeleine
We will let you know more details in the next few weeks after we make first a trial run.

• But first we have the Winterkost Party coming up at the residence of Malcolm and Linda Burns (1320 N. Rendon St., NO, 70119 phone: 504-486-7793) on Sunday March 9 at 1:00 pm.

If you have an opportunity to cook and bring something that will fit into that theme it would be very much appreciated. I am sure that you have still in the attic a Dutch cookbook and otherwise your creativity will work as well.

• So this is the list of events for the next few months:

March 9 Sunday 1:00 pm Winterkost Party Burns Residence

April 20 Sunday 1:00 pm Street Car/Coffee Gathering Point TBA

May 4 Sunday 1:00 pm Indonesian Potluck Coumou Residence, Slidell

Let us know if you need transportation to and from the meeting site. We may be able to assist you, but cannot guarantee that of course.
We will start again scheduling events in September after the vacations. Don’t forget to look from time to time at the web site.

• For the Coffee meetings we have the following schedule:

March 29 Saturday 10:00 am Rendez-vous Café on General de Gaulle/Westbank

May 24 Saturday 10:00 am La Madeleine on Severn/Eastbank

June 21 Saturday 10:00 am Still Perking at Washington/corner Prytania

July 19 Saturday 10.00 am Common Grounds/Hue P.Long/Gretna/Westbank

August 23 Saturday 10:00 am Puccino’s/ Magazine Street/Eastbank

Cily and I are really enjoying those coffee meetings. It gives us a good forum for all kind of exchange of (personal) information. Apart from coffee you can always get a light breakfast or a piece of cake. So, try it once if you are not coming regularly.

• In the course of the last month I got a couple of requests out of Holland

De DVDs cost $ 24.00 each including Post & Handling. The DVDs are available in the NTSC format for the USA. Let me know if you want one so that I can send you an order form. In case you would like to see one of the DVDs, but not buy it, you can let me know as well. With enough interest in a few, we may decide to buy them for the club and give every one the chance to see them or we can show them during a meeting.

• 2. Another request came from Mr. Fedor Steer who in fact lives in Miami, Fl who is considering importing children’s DVDs (children TV programs) such as Pipo the Clown, Swiebertje, Paulus de Boskabouter enz. Transferred to NTSC. They are of course in Dutch. We will put the web site of Mr. Steer foreignlanguageentertainment.com on our web site so that you can get more details.

• 3. During our New Years Party our member Nicole Samuel-Sampson informed the attending members, that her husband Dewey is playing in a band that regularly performs in Preservation Hall. When a big enough group of members would like so, Dewey can arrange for a session when his schedule would permit this as well. We would like to hear from the membership. Send me an e-mail or show your interest with a phonecall.

• 5. This time of the year you maybe planning your vacation already. Most of us make digital pictures when we are abroad. When you burn your photos on a CD or DVD, we could show them during one of our meetings. Conny and Casey Willems went to Mali in Africa and made marvelous pictures of that interesting but poor country. We hope to get those pictures on a DVD and show them hopefully with his comments.

• 6. Cily and I are becoming more and more aware that our City offers an enormous amount of cultural events and programs and many are free of charge. We went e.g. to “Music of the Mississippi” in the St. Louis Cathedral. The church was completely filled. The L.P.O. played beautiful music. But there are many more in the city. Check from time to time the Lagniappe section in the Times Picayune on Saturdays and break away from your home for a couple of hours.

• 7. Eric Gossiaux, our Vice-President is involved (partly because of his daughter's art study) in visual arts. He mentioned a number of galleries on Magazine street and the warehouse district that have regular exhibitions. You may have heard about “White Linen Night” when several studios and galleries are open at night

• 8. The New Orleans Opera is attracting formidable singers and those who attended some operas last season and this year so far are enthusiastic. This may be something to do with interested members in the future.

• 9. Cily and I are active in the People Program for persons 50 year and older. We both teach as well as taking lessons. It has enriched our lives substantially and we enjoy it very much. The courses are very diversified and for a relatively small memberships fee you can take as many courses as you want. The courses are given by volunteers. Look at the web site: www.peopleprogram.org for more information about places and times. There are two places on the East Bank and one on the West Bank.